Hello and welcome to Van life Devotions. Leading up to Easter, we are looking at each of the Beatitudes – the incredible teaching of Jesus that was a part of His famous Sermon on the Mountain.
The past few weeks, we have looked at the first five Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”, “Blessed are those who mourn”, “Blessed are the meek”, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, “Blessed are the merciful…”. Let’s now look at the sixth beatitude found in Matthew 5 verse 8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8 NIV).
Pure in heart. That’s something to think about, isn’t it? It means you’re living the blessed life when you stop worrying about the externals of life knowing that it what’s inside of you that matters.
What does it mean to have a pure heart? As soon as Jesus spoke this word pure people minds probably went in one direction. If any one word captured what religion was all about in that culture, it was purity. To be pure was to be clean and not infected with the wrong things. But the Pharisees and other religious leaders defined it almost completely in terms of things other people could see. It had become a matter of keeping so many rules. You don’t eat certain foods, as everyone had known since the earliest days of Israel, when God gave Moses the laws. “Unclean” food made you unclean.
That was long established. But you also didn’t eat with “unclean” people, meaning Gentiles. That also made you unclean. But Jesus did that all the time.
The Pharisees took pains to show they were pure, and they also took pains to make sure others did the same. But Jesus was challenging their entire concept of what was pure and clean. At one point, in Matthew 23, he told them they were too worried about cleaning “the outside of the cup” (v25) while the inside was filthy. Then He compared the leaders, to “whitewashed tombs,” which were sparkling and bright on the outside but filled with death and decay on the inside (v27).
Pretty harsh words, but they illustrated where Jesus thought it most important to be clean and pure. A great part of the upside-down, inside-out message of Jesus is that God doesn’t look so much on the outside, which is so easy to fake. He looks more on the inside, where we are what we are.
So, Jesus drops the well-known word pure into his sermon and then gives it a dramatic new spin. People need to stop worrying about their outward appearance and realize that God sees inside us. Purity of heart over purity of decoration.
As for the word purity itself it means unmixed: no bad ingredients thrown in. A pure-hearted person is one whose motives are unmixed, whose thoughts are holy, whose conscience is clean.
Those who are pure inheart, Jesus says, will see God. With the lens of their heart, they see in faith God for who He really is and then one day experience an incredible vision of Him in eternity. What an indescribable blessing.
Let’s pray.
Dear God. Through Your death we have been cleansed. Please help keep our hearts and hands pure by not mixing bad motives and attitudes. May we see You clearly. O God, preserve us who travel; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and bring us in safety to our journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
David Moyes
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